Why Building Infographics Should be Part of Your Content Marketing Strategy

Content marketing is all about storytelling. Consumers aren’t interested in hearing lists of facts or pouring over research studies. While data is important to support a message, the way information is conveyed is paramount.

Ultimately, a story is the most compelling way to communicate your message — any interesting narrative is much more engaging than simple messaging. Infographics are a great tactic for bringing more storytelling into your marketing efforts. They combine visual storytelling and strong data into one compelling, easy to understand, content piece.

But why should you invest your time and marketing budget into building an infographic?

Why infographics?

First, infographics are a fantastic way to learn more about your customers. In order to decide on a topic for your infographic, you’ll need to study engagement metrics from your blog posts and social media, as well as data from your customer service emails and surveys. How else would you be able to figure out what information your audience is looking for?

"Creating an infographic requires you to really put yourself in the shoes of your customer to understand what information and data is most relevant to them."

Creating an infographic requires you to really put yourself in the shoes of your customer to understand what information and data is most relevant to them. You’ll also learn much more about your customers following the publishing of your infographic. What was your bounce rate from the infographic landing page? How many downloads were there? Did your infographic go viral on social media? Your customers’ engagement with and reception of the infographic will help to inform future marketing decisions.

Infographics also help in establishing your business as an expert in your respective field. As I mentioned in another article, “investing in building and distributing high-quality, informative content will help demonstrate your knowledge and skill set as a business.”

Building an infographic takes time and effort — you have to research data and statistics, analyze and digest the messages and trends within your research, and then build out a story explaining those findings and compile it into a simple, visually-appealing piece of content. By investing that time and sharing such valuable content, you demonstrate your expertise and build authority as leader on the subject matter.

Infographics are also a great way to attract new customers to your business. They’re a social media friendly way to share information, and while a blog post requires the reader to click through an ad or a social media post, an infographic can be read right on the original page, helping increase engagement.

Infographics also help to attract new leads thanks to their simplicity — they’re a quick way to understand a complicated issue. You’re saving people from having to spend time researching their own data, analyzing it, and compiling it into a useful piece of content, and also simplifying a complex topic into easily comprehensible chunks of information.

As explained by Hubspot, “an infographic is up to 30 times more likely to be read than an article — and since it's visual content, it's also 34% more effective in persuading an audience in comparison to verbal presentations alone.”

Finally, a great benefit to infographics is that you can make them downloadable content. In doing so, you’re able to capture emails and other requested details from potential new customers. Alternatively, you can require a newsletter sign up in order to download your infographic. Either way, with downloadable content like infographics, you can capture the contact information of potential customers, which allows you to create more targeted and hopefully higher ROI marketing campaigns.

Overall, infographics are a great way to expand the variety of content you share with your audience and hopefully increase the influx of leads to your business. With all this in mind, read on for three tips on how to create an impactful infographic that will help you reach your business goals.

1. Target a specific audience with a specific topic

When developing an infographic, it’s crucial to keep a well-defined target audience in mind. In order for your infographic to garner the attention and traction you want, you need to select topics and data that are relevant.

Once you’ve defined your audience, you’ll be better equipped to decide on a topic for your infographic. Use engagement metrics from your blog posts and social media, as well as data from your customer service emails and surveys to guide your decision making process.

Remember to be specific with your topic, like you are with your target audience. While choosing a generally popular topic seems like a good idea at first, since it could attract a larger audience, the reality is that selecting a topic of high interest to your audience will result in better engagement and higher conversions.

The whole value and purpose of infographics is that they’re a quick way to understand a complicated issue, and a proper topic choice will ensure that your infographic will appeal to and inform your intended audience.

2. Emphasize storytelling

Data and statistics are generally difficult to understand and remember. Infographics present such numbers in a story-like format as digestible chunks of information. By presenting numerical information this way, you put it into context and therefore make it more useful and memorable for your audience.

You’ve already selected your topic, and there begins your research. Do some initial broad searching into the latest data and statistics around your topic of interest. From what you find, are there any potential stories hidden within it? Perhaps there’s an industry trend to report on, or two data sets you could compare, or even an outlier statistic that could serve as a learning opportunity.

Based on whatever story you pull from the data, this will decide what information is relevant for you to include. Data adds credibility to the story you’re telling, and it’s important to include enough information to address questions your audience has, without overwhelming them.

3. Keep it simple and focused

When it comes to infographics, less is more. While, yes, supporting data is important, what’s more important is impactful data. Including too many graphs and statistics will overwhelm your reader, and the intended takeaway will become less clear. Picking the strongest data to support your selected topic will clarify and support the point you’re trying to make, without diluting it.

Formatting the selected data is just as important. Keep in mind that a storyteller approach ensures a logical infographic flow. As you’re starting out, list the main points you want to make and the intended conclusion of your reader. This will help you categorize your data into groupings, determine relevant points, and discover potential redundancy in the information you’ve researched. Ultimately, the end goal is having a simple but impactful way to understand a complicated issue.

Engage your audience with simple but informative content

Building an infographic is a great way to expand the variety of content you share with your audience. By combining visual storytelling and strong data into one compelling, easy to understand content piece, you provide value to your audience while also attracting new customers and demonstrating your business’ expertise.

What are your tips for creating an effective infographic? Let us know in the comments below!

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